SIXTEENTH MEETING OF THE ITU RADIOCOMMUNICATION

UNCLAS STATE 037998


PASS IEA FOR DAVID SALAZAR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECPS ITU
SUBJECT: SIXTEENTH MEETING OF THE ITU RADIOCOMMUNICATION
ADVISORY GROUP, FEBRUARY 4-6, 2009


1. Summary. The sixteenth meeting of the International
Telecommunication Union,s (ITU) Radiocommunication Advisory
Group (RAG) met in Geneva, from 4-6 February 2009, under the
chairmanship of Mr. J.B. Yao Kouakou (Cote d,Ivoire). The
meeting was attended by 104 delegates representing 41 Member
States, and 12 Sector Members, including two international
organizations. The U.S. delegation was led by the Department
of State. It consisted of nine delegates, 4 from government
and 5 from the private sector. High points of the meeting
included clarification of working methods used by the Study
Groups (SG),the scope of the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR)
staff participation in workshops and seminars sponsored by
the ITU, the biennial budget for 2010-2011, and electronic
document handling. The U.S. met all of its objectives for
this meeting. End summary.


2. Scope of BR staff participation in BR sponsored
workshops. The United States presented a document giving
U.S. views on BR staff participation in ITU sponsored
workshops. This contribution was prompted by recent BR staff
presentations on policy matters such as spectrum auctions,
fees, and trading of interference rights. The U.S.
contribution suggested that BR staff refrain from addressing
policy initiatives in public forums, and instead focus on
technical, administrative and regulatory issues that are
within their areas of expertise.

The U.S. contribution led to a spirited debate on the role
of BR staff. The Director of the BR requested the floor
immediately after the presentation of the contribution to
defend BR staff participation in workshops, but then stated
that he would take the U.S. suggestions under advisement and
personally take responsibility for BR staffs, public
presentations. In other interventions, Canada and the Arab
Group strongly supported the U.S. view, cautioning that
presentation documents live on beyond the event in which they
are given, and, noting that policy initiatives are within the
province of member administrations, and not the ITU.
European administrations, on the other hand, stated their
belief that it is acceptable for the ITU staff to generate
policy initiatives. Obviously no decision was taken as the
RAG is only an advisory group, but the Director clearly
understood the U.S. suggestions and explicitly said he would
take note. The European interventions appear to expose a
significant and serious departure of views on the ITU,s
role, apparently indicating support for its expansion to
something beyond service to its membership.


3. Study Questions based on WRC Resolutions or
Recommendations. The United States introduced a contribution
that noted that new study questions based on WRC Resolutions
or Recommendations are permitted by the Constitution and
Convention, and that such questions should be allowed when
direction provided by the WRC is vague. This document
resulted in a lengthy debate. In order to provide
clarification for administrations that indicated they were
unclear regarding the intent of the U.S. contribution, the
U.S. delegation explained that when a WRC gives direction
through Resolution or Recommendation, No. 149A of the
Convention and Resolution ITU-R 5-5 provides that ITU-R
studies may begin without the need for adopting an associated
study Question. However, these provisions do not prohibit
the adoption of a question in situations where WRC direction
is vague or non-existent. A study question serves to focus
the work of the SGs by stating agreed upon technical
boundaries within which the studies should be conducted. Thus
it avoids debate at each meeting on whether contributions are
within the scope of what should be studied. Despite the
organization,s own rules, with the exception of Canada, the
meeting was not willing to clearly state that there is no
prohibition to adopting a new Study Question on a topic for
which there exists a WRC Resolution or Recommendation. The
meeting did acknowledge that direction from WRCs on study
matters could be vague, and to address how SGs should proceed
in these cases, stated that "(T)o ensure that sufficient
information is provided to the membership on the topic
concerned, additional information could be included in the
Summary Records or Chairman,s Reports of the relevant SGs,
thereby enabling the membership to fully study the topic
without the need to pursue the adoption and approval of a new
Question."


4. Studies Undertaken Without underlying Questions. In
response to a contribution from Canada, the RAG noted that in
accordance with ITU-R 5-5 Section 10, it is the current
understanding that once studies are completed the SGs are to
develop Reports and/or Recommendations based on the studies
coming from the SGs, whether or not an underlying Question
exists, and further process them for adoption and approval,
as appropriate.


5. Referencing the Radio Regulations (RR) in
Recommendations. Based on a Canadian contribution, the RAG
noted that the need to refer to specific provisions of the
RRs in a Recommendation is a matter to be left to the wisdom
of SGs and their Chairs, based on a consensus reached by the
group. The RAG also noted that there is no prohibition to
including a specific reference to provisions of the RR in a
Recommendation, but SGs should avoid interpretations of the
referenced RRs.


6. Sending Recommendations for Approval. RAG took note of a
Canadian contribution "inviting the Member States attending a
Study Group meeting and opposing the consideration of a
Recommendation for adoption to present technical reasons for
the objection in writing at that meeting." In this regard,
RAG, taking into account the relevant part of section 10.2 of
Resolution ITU-R 1-5, invites the Chairs of the SGs to
encourage the opposing Member States to give their written
technical reasons for objecting to a draft Recommendation at
the meeting where the objection is raised. RAG noted that if
this did not occur then the SG or Working Party would be
unable to address the objection or to further work on the
Recommendation.


7. Protection Criteria and Sharing Criteria. A contribution
from Italy asked the RAG to endorse the role of the SGs in
defining protection criteria relating to the services covered
within their scope. Following many interventions expressing
views on SG responsibilities for sharing studies and
protection criteria, the meeting advised that sharing studies
involving sub-working groups or Working Parties (WPs) from
more than one SG may include the following cases:
--- The development of relevant protection criteria
pertaining to a given radio service should remain within the
WP (or SG) responsible for the service. This WP or SG will
initiate the study in question and liaise with other WPs
involved to progress the work. Once the work is mature and
mutually agreed by the WPs involved, the output in the form
of a new or revised Recommendation and/or Report, as
appropriate, would be submitted to the parent Study Group of
the WP that initiated the study for formal actions on the
adoption and approval procedures. The final product would
become part of the SG documentation.
--- The main objective during the development of sharing
studies is to continually improve the efficient use of the
spectrum/orbit resource for the benefit of all users. This
is often driven by new technological advances and by new
applications. In this case, the role of the WP responsible
for the new applications is important when conducting the
sharing studies with the caveat that it is also essential to
take into consideration the protection requirements of the
existing systems. The WP responsible for the new application
could initiate the sharing studies and liaise with the other
WPs involved to progress the work. Once the work is mature
and mutually agreed by the WPs involved, the output in the
form of a new or revised Recommendation and/or Report would
be formally adopted and maintained by the SG responsible for
the new application.


8. Chair/Vice-Chair (CVC-15). Dr. Kevin Hughes (Head of
the SG Department) gave a brief report on the 15th meeting of
Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the Radiocommunication Study
Groups. The business of this meeting covered five topics:
the status of activities associated with CPM-11 and
preparations for WRC-11; working methods of SGs; treatment of
issues involving more than one SG; liaison activities; and an
oral report on the work in CCV. Mr. Hughes noted the
emphasis being placed on electronic working methods within
the ITU. He also pointed to an input to the CVC-15 from the
Chair of SG 4 that discussed delays many of the SGs
experience in the development and approval of Recommendations
due to misinterpretations of the working methods outlined in
Resolution ITU-R-5. All present agreed to the importance for
the SGs to produce good quality outputs in a timely manner.
It noted that the failure to do so could jeopardize the
relevance of ITU-R Recommendations, particularly for
industry.


9. Resolution 647. Resolution 647 (WRC-07),Spectrum
Management Guidelines for Emergency and Disaster Relief
Radiocommunication encourages administrations to maintain
available frequencies for use in the very early stages of
humanitarian assistance intervention for disaster relief and
first responders. It also provides for administrations to
provide relevant, up-to-date information to the BR concerning
national frequency allocations and spectrum management
practices for emergency and disaster relief communications.
Most administrations have not submitted this information.
The Department of State will coordinate with the FCC and NTIA
to submit publicly available information requested by
Resolution 647, recognizing that some frequencies are
protected due to national security.


10. Electronic Document Handling (EDH). The report of the
Coordinator of the Correspondence Group on EDH was presented
by Mr. Bruce Gracie. Of particular note was that the RAG
recognized the need to make available a limited number of
paper copies of the documents to delegates upon demand. RAG
noted that interpreters also need paper copies to facilitate
their work when required.


11. Budget. The RAG noted the report from the Director of
the Radiocommunication Bureau (BR) on the estimated biennial
budget for 2010-2011. The Director explained that the
figures were preliminary and under discussion within the
Secretariat. He indicated that he would be presenting the
first draft budget proposal for consideration of the
Management and Budget Group in June based on a balanced
expense/income budget.


12. WRC-11 preparations. The Chief of ITU Conferences and
Publications (C&P) Department provided information on the
status of the consultations foreseen in Council Resolution
1291 relating to a definitive choice of venue and dates for
WRC-11. Regarding venue, the ITU has received no official
invitation from a Member State wishing to host WRC-11, and
therefore WRC-11 will be in Geneva. As for dates, Council
2008 noted that the originally proposed dates were 24
October-18 November 2011. Council,s attention was drawn to
the provisions of Resolution 111 (Rev.Antalya, 2006) calling
for account to be taken of the dates of religious periods
when drawing up schedules of conferences and assemblies of
international organizations. To hold WRC-11 during a period
that does not overlap with Eid al-Adha holidays, which in
2011 occurs on 6 November, two options were considered. Both
options would necessitate other organizations, who have
already booked the CICG, to agree to change the dates of
their conferences. Consultations to date have not met with
success, but the Department will continue to attempt to
change the dates.


13. IARU booklet. RAG expressed appreciation to the IARU
for making available to the delegates a booklet containing
the WRC-11 agenda and relevant Resolutions.


14. Operational Plan. RAG reviewed the draft ITU-R
Operational Plan for 2010-2013 and invited the Director to
collect comments that might be formulated by RAG members
before the final version is submitted for the 2009 session of
the Council. RAG also considered the 2008 Performance Report
and congratulated the BR for last year,s good results.


15. Date of next meeting. The next RAG meeting is
tentatively scheduled for 17-19 February 2010 in Geneva. The
definitive dates will be established in coordination with the
meeting of advisory groups of the two other sectors.


CLINTON